Two memento mori

[alexxkay]

Both seen on twitter; sources unknown.

When Matthias Huss published the earliest known depiction of a print shop in 1499 in Lyons, the print crew were shown transfixed and arrested at their various tasks by the sudden incursion of a group of motley skeletons who obviously wish to drag them off in an inky danse macabre. Thus, at die very outset, this self-reflexive act of envisioning of print production is haunted by the nightmare of its own destruction, whethier through plague and mortality, clerical prosecution or mordant wit. In its early years, printing was mistrusted, a ‘dark art’, and it was clearly important that the traditional danse macabre be seen, however ironically, as the emblem of a supernatural agency capable of breaching the apparently stable borders, the superior speed and durability, of this new visual medium. In our own time, similar threats embodied in new technologies can be seen registered in the films Rinqu (1998) and White Noise (2005).

Dustsceawung (Old English): contemplation of the fact that dust used to be other things - the walls of a city, the chief of the guards, a book, a great tree: dust is always the ultimate destination. Such contemplation may loosen the grip of our worldly desires. From dūst (“dust”) + sċēawung (“inspection, contemplation”)

Comments

[sovay]

Both seen on twitter; sources unknown.

The first is from David J. Jones' Gothic Machine: Textualities, Pre-cinematic Media and Film in Popular Visual Culture, 1670–1910 (2011), which looks amazing.

In its early years, printing was mistrusted, a ‘dark art’, and it was clearly important that the traditional danse macabre be seen, however ironically, as the emblem of a supernatural agency capable of breaching the apparently stable borders, the superior speed and durability, of this new visual medium.

This reminds me a lot of the ambiguity with which photography is regarded in FairyTale: A True Story (1997), which has one of the most useless and saccharine titles imaginable for a surprisingly crunchy film half inspired by, half directly about the Cottingley Fairies.

[ilaine]

Old English, clearly showing it's Germanic heritage in having the very best words!

ETA. the modern German word for dust is der Staub, and a vacuum cleaner is der Staubsauger (lit dust sucker). The german word related to our dust is der Dunst, which means mist or haze.